Step Up

    Challenge yourself. Life is a process and throughout your years on this planet, get to know yourself better at every stage. Surprise yourself. If you go through life without tring something new, you are not doing yourself justice. Discover your true potential and maybe more than just your life will improve.

Step Up

    Challenge yourself. Life is a process and throughout your years on this planet, get to know yourself better at every stage. Surprise yourself. If you go through life without trying something new, you are not doing yourself justice. Discover your true potential and maybe more than just your life will improve.

Tell the Truth

    Be truthful, even when it is hard. If someone asks for your opinion, give it honestly. Otherwise, you can’t be confident in your own answer. My friend Nancy Fish lives by this and one other ideal (more about that later!)

Save Seeds

    My Aunt Ruth in Flat Rock, West Virginia raised me to save seeds. A child of the Great Depression, my aunt Ruth was teaching me the virtue of thrift when she showed how to harvest, dry, and save seeds from veggies and flowers. Thrift was an important survival skill for that time and I see it as a forgotten virtue whose time has arrived once again. I remember being very impatient about how long it took for spring to come so I could sow the marigolds, alyssum, and four o'clocks that I had collected.

Go Forth and See the World

    Things are starting to get back to normal, and vacation plans are beginning to ramp up in numbers again. And after this past year, it's important to remember the importance of traveling, even if it means still wearing a mask and having hand sanitizer on your person after getting the vaccine.

    I am reminded of the peripatetic Phil Cousineau that travel is a very important tool for lasting happiness and creating memories to savor over a lifetime. Phil, author of essential guides to making travel meaningful, The Art of Pilgrimage and The Book of Roads, says its important to "go out of your way," and meet people that are native to the place you're visiting. He also reminds us to give gifts, simple tokens from your homeland, and gestures of goodwill that will be returned a thousandfold.

    Over 2,000 years ago, the sage Lao Tzu remarked, "The longest journey starts with a single step." Phil says to use "the eyes of the heart" when traveling to learn something about yourself and the wide world around you. Here are some of Phil's recommended practices for making travel meaningful:

    Imagine your first memorable journey. What images rise up in your soul? They may be a childhood visit to the family gravesite, the lecture your uncle gave at a famous battlefield, or the hand-in-hand trip with your mother to a religious site. What feelings are evoked by your enshrined travel memories? Do they have any connection with your life today? Have you ever enshrined travel memories? Do they have any connection to your life today? Have you ever made a vow to go someplace that is sacred to you, your family, your group? Have you ever imagined yourself in a place that stirred your soul like the song of doves at dawn? If not you, then who? If not now, when? If not here, where? Paris? Benares? Memphis? -Uncover what you log for and discover who you are.

    If you are traveling soon, make sure you are still practicing guidelines! Mask up, sanitize your hands, and keep six feet apart.

Step Up

Challenge yourself. Life is a process and throughout your years on this planet, get to know yourself better at every stage. Surprise yourself. If you go through life without trying something new, you are not doing yourself justice. Discover your true potential and maybe more than just your life will improve.